The Pentacle - TopBooks

1. Grettir's Saga by Anon, 1320s

   Not a fantasy really, but the central encounter between Grettir and the monstrous blue-skinned revenant Glam is one of literature's most exciting and terrifying collisions of the fantastic with the human world.

2. Monkey by Wu Ch'eng-en, 16th century

   Hugely entertaining mix of demons, gods, saints and sages; part fairy tale, part allegory, part satire. A literary adaptation of existing legends in much the same way as Malory's Morte D'Arthur, but with far better jokes.

3. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, 1726

   The archetypal narrative of extravagant far-flung societies, all of which reflect back the absurdities and follies of our own.

4. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, 1908

   Perfect fantasy of the small-scale, given shape by the author's mystical devotion to the English countryside.

5. War in Heaven by Charles Williams, 1930

   Another English mystic, but infinitely more odd. Williams's occult novels are imbued with his vision of neo-Platonic Christianity.

6. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien, 1937

   Whereas the monolithic scale and sobriety of The Lord of the Rings ultimately led fantasy into bad habits, The Hobbit keeps the focus firmly on the blossoming of Bilbo, the timorous everyman.

7. Titus Groan/Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake, 1946/1950

   Much fantasy revolves ponderously around good v evil; Peake brings us stasis v change. The endless, ancient rituals of Gormenghast are stultifying and meaningless; the urchin Steerpike rebels against them, bringing energy, ingenuity and patience to work in an effort to achieve power.

8. The Dying Earth by Jack Vance, 1950

   In the far future, the old red sun is failing and Earth's inhabitants (human and inhuman) wander amid the ruins of the past. Vance's style is rich and ornate; he conjures a profusion of odd cultures, decadent magicians, predatory creatures chopping logic and trading verbal flourishes with their victims.

9. The Ogre Downstairs by Diana Wynne Jones, 1974

   DWJ was brilliantly fusing magic and humour for children 20 years before the current wave began. Here, warring step-siblings experiment with wonder-working chemistry sets. The invasion of the fantastical into drably ordinary lives is liberating, but also deeply unsettling, as it should be.

10. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, 1979

    Recent developments have seen the divisions between folk-tales, children's fiction and adult fantasy blur more than ever, but Carter's collection is an unashamed reappropriation of fairy stories for a specifically adult audience. She revels in the carnality of Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Bluebeard et al, re-energising the form, while doffing her cap to the traditions on which modern fantasy is based.

Source: The Guardian